New Jersey residents are up in arms about the deal: Locus Point is expected to close the station and give up its license as the FCC takes broadcast stations off the air and auctions those airwaves to cellphone companies.
It’s hard to fathom the sorry state of broadcast ownership during the administration of our nation’s first Black president. After all, during his first presidential campaign, President Obama pledged to “encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media.”
But that hasn’t happened.
Public interest and civil rights groups have warned the FCC that its policies allowing for greater media consolidation were going to push out the few remaining Black people who owned broadcast stations.
Media consolidation has made it harder for Black people to own broadcast stations because it raises entry barriers for small owners. Concentration makes it harder for any small owner to compete, and the few non-White broadcast licensees we have are far more likely to be small owners who control just a handful of stations or a single broadcast outlet.